So Scary
by Tobirion
Summary: Cloud knows that he can be just as scary as the other monsters, despite what everyone else might think.  This Halloween, he'll get his chance to prove it. Angeal/Sephiroth/Genesis/Zack/Cloud; ASGZC. Happy Halloween!


**Happy Belated Halloween! :D I got tons of candy-I hope you did too. That other asgzc I promised is coming along slowly, shouldn't be too much longer though. Why am I writing so much ASGZC? Who knoooows? Also, new poll, check it out. :3 Beware cursing, ooc, whatever, the usual.  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII.  
**

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"Get off!"

"Fuck—ow, fuck—fuck you—fuck-"

"TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I SHALL RAIN ETERNAL HELLFIRE DOWN UPON YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN-"

"Order please! _Order_!"

"Shut your whore mouth, Reeve-"

"Shut up, all of you!"

"Fuck—"

Cloud grappled with the huge mass of monsters fighting to get into the mission briefing room. It was _that _time of year again, which meant everyone was going crazy and beginning to lose their minds. Everyone in Shin-Ra wanted to get out this Halloween, including Cloud. That was why the blond spat and kicked and cursed with the best of them, trying to reach his goal—Lazard's desk.

This year was going to be different.

Cloud saw his opening and elbowed Reno in the jaw, kicked Vincent in the shin and dropped to the floor to crawl under Yuffie's legs. Careful, careful, because her third one was always so unpredictable—Cloud managed to scoot forward a few feet and somersaulted to the front of the group, darting forward while batting away someone's hands pulling at his wing.

Lazard looked up from his clipboard and frowned.

"Cloud-" he began.

Cloud cut him off. He wouldn't hear it this year. "I'm ready, Sir!"

Lazard sighed, adjusting his glasses. He always did that when Cloud was around. "I don't think-"

Cloud's wing flapped in irritation and he growled, "Look. I just risked my life getting through _that_-" -he stopped to gesture at the throng of fighting people in the entrance of the room- "And I WANT MY MISSION. NOW."

Lazard's lips twitched upwards. Rufus poked his head in from the next room, seeing what was taking so long, and his reaction to seeing Cloud was the same—he sighed.

It wasn't that Cloud was disliked in Shin-Ra; in fact, it was quite the opposite. He had lots of friends and admirers. Lazard and Rufus liked him. It was just that it was Halloween... and Cloud wasn't scary. At all.

"You're not scary," Rufus said to Cloud, gesturing at security. Tseng and Rude began to push back the crazies in the door and force them to form a single-file line. "At all."

Cloud's eyes greened and the curtains flapped as he roared, "I am _so _scary!"

The two men stared at him flatly and Cloud pouted, sagging and staring at the floor. "Please?" he whispered.

The other blonds cracked. They came over to him and patted his shoulders.

"...Fine, alright," Lazard said with a wince, giving a last pat before turning to the big computer in the center of the room.

Rufus whispered to Lazard, "Any five year olds?"

People always forgot that he had good hearing, and he got angry all over again. "No!" he shouted. "No little kids." He drew himself up to his full height. "I could scare a bunch of full grown men by myself—_that's_ how scary I am!"

Lazard and Rufus looked at each other and seemed to conclude that it was pointless arguing. Lazard punched a few things into the computer and Cloud got his mission. They printed out a sheet with the particulars and Cloud snatched it from his Director's grasp gleefully. He signed it, overjoyed, and ran out of the room, sticking his tongue out at the angry monsters in line.

Cloud sprinted to his apartment, not stopping to talk to anyone on his way, even Aerith. They would understand. He stumbled into his room and immediately put on the scariest music he had and played it loud, trying to get himself in the mood.

He held the paper out in front of him and danced with it, reading it over and over and over. _Yes._

_This was it. His moment._

Cloud showered so fast those zippy werewolves would have been proud. Then he ate the most nutritious dinner he had ever had, texting all his friends when he wasn't using his fork to let them all know the good news. Cloud then flew into bed in a hurry. He needed to be well-rested and healthy so he could be his scariest.

And yes, he was going to be so scary. _So _scary.

In the morning Cloud slept in (his mission wasn't until ten-thirty at night, after all). He woke lazily, staring at the decorations on his ceiling that he loved so much.

It was hard, his life. In Shin-Ra only the scariest survived. People in Nibelheim, his hometown, had said that he'd never make it—but he was determined. He wasn't a vampire and didn't have rotting flesh or snakes for hair or three foot long claws. He had big blue eyes, a happy, upbeat personality and a batlike wing that he thought was pretty fucking terrifying but other people said was cute.

He had managed to get this far from pure stubbornness, and he wasn't about to fail now. He _had _to prove himself to his superiors. Had to.

Cloud rolled out of bed eventually, determined. His closet seemed like a new challenge of its own—he had to find something that was scary yet attractive. Would make you wet yourself and want him. That's what those succubi—or was it incubi, or both—did, and a heck of a lot of witches. He would be scary as hell—no, _scarier than hell—_and he would do it with _style_. Nothing that screamed "loser" this year. Cloud looked until he was satisfied with what he had picked and solemnly brought them to the bathroom, feeling like a religious man giving some sort of offering.

This shower was slow and meticulous. He washed everything, every bit of his body. He scrubbed his hair with his eyes closed, picturing the faces of his victims when he scared them. It was going to be great.

When he finished he glared at himself, naked, in the mirror. He brought out his fangs and looked at them from every angle and pose.

"You're scary," he told his reflection. "You're terrifying."

The ghoul in the mirror looked like he believed it.

"You're gonna scare those guys so hard they shit their pants! They're gonna scream like little girls! They're going to _cry_!"

Now sufficiently pumped up, Cloud turned on his music louder than he had it yesterday and dressed to it, reading over his paper. He hate a healthy breakfast and scurried out of the room, grabbing his phone on the way.

It was time to visit Tifa, who did the makeup for all the Second-Class monsters.

Kunsel was sitting in his seat; a few witches were fussing over his hair.

"Hey Cloud," he greeted, "You have a mission?" he sounded surprised.

"I do," Cloud sniffed, sitting in a chair. Tifa came over to him with a smile—she was such a good friend of his.

"Just make me scary," Cloud said, eerily serious.

He, Tifa and Kunsel chatted as Tifa worked. Kunsel's mission was to crash a teenage party; he sounded excited about it. Such a pervert, that man was. Cloud told him that he had to scare these four guys at a private party of their own—he made sure to add in at the end that apparently, they weren't scared of much.

Kunsel smiled, and Cloud got the feeling it was wider than it should have been. "Good luck, man."

He and Tifa discussed the latest gossip in Shin-Ra. One of Palmer's eyeballs had mated with one of Don Corneo's, or something crazy like that, and a troop of a hundred little eyeball babies had been spotted near one of the vending machines on the third floor. When Tifa was done she held out the mirror with a smile.

He looked terrifying. White and gray paint had been stylishly applied to make him look gaunt and flaky—like he could just waste away. His spikes looked limp and filthy with, woah—

Cloud squawked and grabbed the mirror to examine the top of his head. It looked like he had a huge wound, but he felt fine. Realistic-looking blood dripped from his hairline.

"Tifa, I love you."

"Don't smudge it," she warned.

Cloud waved goodbye to an amused looking Tifa and Kunsel and returned to his apartment. He spent a few hours meditating and studying his targets. They were really good-looking guys. Two of them looked really hard to scare; he'd work on the other two first. Some odd names, goddamn.

The day passed both incredibly slowly and way too fast. At ten o'clock Cloud brushed his teeth, adjusted his outfit and left. He was sick with nerves, but did his best to seem unaffected.

The transport room was a flurry of activity. Cloud ducked Barret's massive gun arm and high-fived one of Cid's thirteen arms as he walked by. He waited in line until Lazard called his name, and then stood on one of the transporter circles on the floor, standing at attention.

"Don't let me down, soldier," Lazard told him. Cloud nodded gravely and closed his eyes. He felt it activate—he bent and squished and stretched and then collapsed against the wall of a closet. Very dark. Quiet.

The human world.

Cloud peered through the crack in the door; he was sitting on a pair of boots that would have gone up to his crotch, had he been wearing them.

He could hear voices, but not in the room this closet was connected to. So, slowly, Cloud opened the door and crawled out. Ah, bedroom. Really big bed, Cloud noticed, taking in all the details. He had trained for moments like these—this was it. He had to do his best. Cloud crawled on the floor until he got to the doorway and peeked around the corner. His targets were sitting in the middle of their living room; the couches were pushed back so there was enough room in the center for them, their cards and their...little plastic discs. Ah, playing chips. Something like that. Each man had an open beer on the carpet beside them. Only one was in costume—and only a cape, at that. Cloud turned around—there were other costumes next to the bed, on the floor. Maybe they left a party early.

Cloud watched them for a minute, then began.

It started with just a flickering of the lights. One of them looked up, confused, but shrugged and gleefully took the others' chips. Then Cloud let the wind outside pick up, making the curtains blow and a cold breeze drift through the room. The ceiling fan above them wobbled.

The apartment groaned—and it kept groaning, a long, drawn-out wail that Cloud added to. The lights went crazy, the appliances in the kitchen whirred and lit up and clicked, the water ran, and the four men were looking around, eyes wide. Cloud let it all gather for a few seconds and appeared before them at his performances' climax, wing out and greened eyes and fangs and scary paint and all.

"BOOOOOOOOOOO!" Cloud boomed in the scariest voice he could muster.

The four men stared at him. They were clearly surprised, but... not scared.

Cloud stepped back. Things in the apartment calmed. Then he pointed at the closest one: "Zack Fair! _Boo_!" He sank to his knees and made a scary face right next to his, pointing his fangs so they were inches from his nose.

Zack's eyebrows shot up, but that was it. Then, silence. Cloud stood again, slowly, feeling their eyes on him. He crossed his arms and frowned. ...Then Cloud sank to the ground once more, cross-legged, and he put his head in his hands.

"How many beers have I had?" Zack wondered.

"I only had a sip or two, and I see him," said Angeal. He took another sip, then nodded again. "Yeah."

They stopped talking when Cloud shuddered and let out a soft sob.

Someone hesitantly touched his shoulder. "Hey... are, uh, you okay?"

"No," Cloud wailed, batting away the hands. He stuttered out an apology, and took a deep breath. "...C-Can I use your shower?"

Bewildered, Genesis said he could and pointed towards the bathroom. Cloud stood, looking away from them because surely his tears were making his face paint run, and he hurried to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Numb, Cloud turned on the water, stripped, and stepped inside.

Not once had he let himself cry in all his time in Shin-Ra. He fought the fuckers that made fun of him and refused to let everyone's contempt get to him, but this was too much. Finally he had a chance to prove that he deserved his place in Shin-Ra—and he had failed so spectacularly he almost doubted he'd even be let back inside the demon realm at all.

_Why weren't they scared! _Cloud thought savagely as he rinsed the hair shit out of his spikes and wiped at the face paint with a washcloth. He needed it _off_. He had done all his tricks—but no, nothing. Maybe humans just weren't scared as easily these days.

Cloud managed to stop his crying, and he hiccuped as he dried himself off and viciously dried at his hair. He felt a lot better with it off and gone. Not even Tifa's hard work could hide what he was—a failure.

He dressed again and stepped into his boots. He finished drying and flapped his wing to rid it of any excess water and stepped out of the bathroom after hanging the towel on a rack.

Sephiroth was checking the lock on the door. _That's not how I got in_, Cloud thought with a weak smile.

They all turn to face him. It seemed to have sunk in that there was a weird blond with a wing in their home. They examined him, noticing the now-clean, soft face and the perky hair.

Angeal said, deadly serious and looking like he might attack, depending on the answer, "How did you get in?"

"The closet."

They didn't quite know what to say to that. After a slight pause Genesis asked, "What are you?"

Cloud smiled, eyes losing their sadness. He grinned. "I am..." The lights flickered, and the apartment groaned again. "A _ghoul_!"

"...Oh."

"I'm a monster," Cloud said sadly, hugging his knees. "I was supposed to scare you... b-but-" his face crumpled, "I'm s-s-sorry I'm not scary!"

The four men came over to him. Someone wrapped their arm around his shoulders and Cloud curled into their warmth.

He shut his eyes and let it all pour out. He did his best to tell these random humans his woes—how no one at home thought he would be able to do it, and how determined he had been, then how badly he had failed. This was his one chance to show his boss that he could scare people... and it hadn't worked. He'd go home and get laughed at.

"I don't _want_ to be a blood farmer," he blubbered.

"Blood farmer?" Zack asked cautiously.

"Cows. Like milk."

"...Oh."

Someone gave him hot chocolate at some point. Cloud blew on it and wiped his eyes.

"I feel a lot better," he confessed shyly. He said to Genesis, whose shoulder he had been weeping on, "I'm sorry for crying all over you."

"No worries," Genesis said, wiping under his eyes with his thumbs. He fixed some of the strands of hair that were stuck to his wet cheeks and smiled at him. "I have a feeling you'll be able to scare everybody, if you don't give up. Is that real?"

Cloud gazed up at Genesis, nearly tearing up again. It was... yes, probably the first time someone had said they believed he could do it—Genesis thought that he could really be scary some day.

It meant a lot.

"Yup!" Cloud proudly made his wing flutter into Genesis' grip. He stuck out his fangs and opened his mouth so they could see. "These too. But I'm a vegetarian, so I never need 'em."

They checked him over, prodding and poking. Cloud laughed and wiggled away when someone's fingers found his sides.

"I think he's the real deal," Zack whispered to Sephiroth.

Cloud heard it, of course, and snapped, affronted, "I am!"

"How do you know our names?"

"Mission report," Cloud said after dipping his tongue into his drink to see how hot it was. Then he stiffened. "I didn't say that!"

Angeal said, "So... there's a big military operation," he waved his hand around, "of monsters and shit whose goal is to scare humans?"

"Of course not," Cloud answered, enjoying their looks of disbelief. "That's silly." He winked and nodded.

The other four were silent, processing this, and then Zack whistled.

"Do—do you mind if I stay here for a little while?" He frowned. "I'll probably get yelled at if I go home."

"Course not!" Zack said, and they all went back to their original spots. Cloud sat next to Sephiroth and peeked at his cards.

The game started up again, this time with questions flying towards Cloud and Cloud dishing them back.

He asked, quite sadly, if any of them thought he was scary. Cloud shrank when they all examined him closely, and pouted when Sephiroth said, "You're not scary."

"At all," Zack chimed.

Genesis narrowed his eyes and said with a smirk, "You're the opposite of scary."

It took a minute for Cloud to get over the disappointment, but then he was fine and started questioning again. The human world was always so interesting, Cloud thought; humans did so many things without extra limbs or magic or the ability to breathe fire. Zack couldn't believe that there were apartments and televisions and "human things" in the demon world—Cloud, frowning, asked him if he thought that the stuff he enjoyed in the human realm wasn't from the demon realm. That shut him up, and Cloud grinned cheekily and blew him a mock-kiss to comfort him.

"Aren't you cold?"

Cloud didn't hear Angeal's question for a moment; a suspicious gust of wind blew one of Genesis' cards into plain view and he cursed loudly and dove on it, but it was too late—everyone had seen it. He looked around, angry. Cloud's rapidly turning-red face gave him away; he quickly tried to crawl away, over Sephiroth, but Genesis lunged and managed to smack his ass, hard, the last bit of Cloud that he could still easily reach. Cloud yelped and sat on Sephiroth's other side, where it was safer. He noticed Angeal's patient staring and asked, "Huh?"

Angeal repeated his question, looking Cloud up and down. "Are you cold?"

Cloud blinked, looking down at his bare legs and arms. "Nah."

"Are those girls' shorts?"

"No!" Cloud spluttered at Zack. "They're for men—and they're _the _fashion for men in the demon world who don't have tails or more than two legs right now. Fashion forward."

"Hm." Zack very clearly looked him over and went back to his cards; Cloud flushed and got up to sit next to Angeal, checking out his hand.

Almost carelessly, someone had asked if he had a girlfriend—Cloud, preoccupied with reheating his hot chocolate, missed the many looks shot over his head when he replied absently, "No—I'm gay anyway. I've been single for a little over a year. You?"

Zack, who he was sitting next to this time, elbowed him gently. "Well, I'm dating a few great guys—their names are Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal."

Cloud lost his concentration, and the miniscule fireball in his hand vanished. He looked up, glancing between all of them. "Ohhhhh," he said, blushing and instantly regretting all the slight flirting he had been doing earlier. Someone chuckled, Cloud smiled shyly, and they continued their game.

This was cool. He had made some human friends. Hot human friends. They were nice, chill. Warm. And liked candy. Cloud stood to get a piece from a bowl on the kitchen table and came back with a few pieces of chocolate. The demon realm may have been Halloween obsessed, but there definitely wasn't enough candy in circulation.

Cloud suddenly stiffened and sat straighter, alert; the other four paused in their game. "Someone's coming!" he hissed, "Rufus."

He looked at them pleadingly. "Can you pretend to be scared? _Please_? I don't want to lose my job-"

"Sure, buddy," Zack said, trying to calm him. "We'd be happy to."

"Okay!" Cloud stood. The wind picked up; the lights began to flicker. "Run and scream, I guess."

Sephiroth did not look amused, and neither did Angeal.

Cloud felt a little lurching in his stomach that let him know Rufus was in the apartment somewhere. The blond tried to look his scariest and made a ridiculous roaring noise. Genesis burst into dramatic tears, throwing an arm over his eyes and wailing. The other three stared at him for a second, and then Zack yelled so loudly Sephiroth jumped.

Zack scrambled away from Cloud, yelling random things—and it was probably a good thing that he was, because he took the attention away from a... less-than-enthusiastic Sephiroth.

Cloud bared his fangs in Angeal's face to hide the fact the man was on the verge of laughing. He lay on Genesis, looking like he was protecting him or cowering on top of him, but Cloud knew he was laughing.

Cloud chased Sephiroth and Zack out of the room, shouting and waving his arms and flapping his wing. Sephiroth, it seemed, had had enough of trying to seem scared and "fainted"—he lay on the ground and closed his eyes. He could just pretend to be asleep.

He cornered Zack in the bathroom. Zack threw a bottle of shampoo at him, which he ducked. Zack screamed and cried and cursed, and Cloud got closer and closer... until he felt a little tug on his belly button which meant that Rufus was gone.

"He's gone!" Cloud shrieked, jumping up and down. Zack started yelling and Cloud hugged him, jumping up and down. Zack swept him up and swung him around in a circle, bouncing out of the bathroom and back to the living room where the others were now.

"Thank you—thank you," Cloud kept saying, keeping one arm around Zack's shoulders and reaching for the other three. "Thank you!"

He turned his happy, beaming face to the side to thank them some more, but before he could open his mouth to do so he felt Angeal's lips press against his for a brief moment. Then the man drew back, Cloud uncrossed his eyes, and they both smiled.

"We're a different species," he said with a grin.

"So?" Genesis kissed his ear and his cheek a few times, closer and closer to his mouth. "You're not that different from us."

Zack seemed content holding him still, so Cloud smiled at him, eyes greening up (there, with a reaction like that they were good for something, at least) and smooshed their lips together. He felt Sephiroth come up behind him and run his hands down his sides, over his backside, over Zack's hands there, then down the top of his thighs and the hem of his shorts.

"Humans can't visit the demon world," Cloud said, as soon as he sensed the shift from fooling around to something more serious. The four men around him froze for a second, and Cloud added, "But I can visit you all here. A lot. I promise."

The 'promise' bit resumed everyone's journey to the bedroom. Zack kissed him again and said, a bit overwhelmed, "Today's been the weirdest day ever. What're the chances I get to do a _monster_?"

Cloud laughed at that, and Sephiroth dropped him on the bed. Cloud retracted his wing and squirmed upwards towards the pillows and headboard, saying with a huge grin on his face, "Trick or treat!"

It was perhaps the first time in Cloud's twenty years of age that he was glad that he didn't have tentacles or killing instruments attached to his body. If he got to be with these four humans who were funny and kind and _good_, he was super glad he wasn't scary. At all.


End file.
